And Spiritual Relations Between Plants and Man - a Fascinating Account of the Physical

picture misrepresented book. book was hardcover with no jacket. one reason i chose this particular book for my daughter is because of the picture showed on site i chose. i had this book when it came out and wanted to share that cover picture especially. other than that book was in good condition. just not the one shown in picture.

This book is a treasure! It makes the perfect gift for your loved ones who are in awe of the fascinating life of plants!
I received it myself as a gift and it is one of my favorite go to gifts for the person you think might have everything!

this was a wonderful book full of many surprising gems of information. The research, of course, is astounding but the parts related to Felcher, Burbank and Carver were mind altering. I participate in a spiritual book club and we all really were astounded by the insights and the truth in this book.

I actually bought this book for my daughter. She was telling me how she is really into plants and I remembered reading this, and enjoying it, when I was in college. To this day I talk to all of my plants when I am in the garden.

It is a GREAT book.

amazing amazing amazing book. things that have been know for centuries but long forgotten and even now just coming to light on cnn.com. this to me is a must reader even in schools to appreciate our life as precious

This book should be part of every Biology class in school nowadays. Quantum Physics has proven that every particle has consciousness, so why should it be so hard to believe that plants are capable of feelings and thought? Even close to 20 years after it was published, the book is still in a class by itself. I especially liked the section on how plants responded to different music genres, although mine seem to grow better to reggae than classical music.

Along with Secrets of the Soil by the same authors, a ground-breaking work that will make you rethink your entire view of the universe. Decades ahead of the scientific establishment (and I should know; I'm part of it).

The Secret Life of Plants
We have had an older edition of this book for many years and read it so often that it fell apart!!!! And so we bought a new one. That in itself should be recommendation enough. It's a fascinating book!! Alas not for vegetarians, because they would feel like going back to eating meat!!

Those folks who are into New Age mumbo-jumbo will like the book. Other people may like the book after ingesting a few mushrooms. More rational people, however, will likely not be able to finish it.

Now I like plants and am well aware they are able to communicate chemically regarding infestations of parasites and developing diseases. I thought "Secret Life" would provide more information about this type of communication. It doesn't. The only thing "Secret Life" accomplishes is to reassure the dear reader that New Age thinking regarding plants is the twenty-first century equivalent of ancient sorcery, i.e. there ain't nothin' to it.

An interesting premise now dated and obscured among page after page of mumbo jumbo. A few good blossoms on the dunghill but by and large not a scientific approach at all. Avoid unless you have too much spare time.

I thought this book would be interesting, and it is, but looking into the science behind it most of the information presented in this took as scientifically proven fact has since been completely disproven.

The book is about a bunch of researchers conducting experiments with lie detector machines to measure a plants response to human thoughts, threats of harming the plant and other such things. It was extremely boring and unenlightening. I only read four chapters and gave up on it.

Totally fascinating and brought home a lot of things I had already observed while working with plants. I have loaned this out many time to educate the people I have working for me and fortunately always got it back with great accolades for the writers of this book. We all need to understand much that cannot be shown to us by scientific data but what comes from our own heart and intuition. Using what I have learned from this book I have been able to learn how to communicate with the plants.

i love this book impressed me forever with wonderful natural mysteries about plants organic functions, even instincts. Like sensing peoples emotions, learned via lie detector tests. It explains how new frontiers of what plants are feeling & can do now. But that goes back millions of years of all animals depending on plants, water, air & microbes we need to live healthy.
I'm still learning about plants functions of utter simple & complex, spirals & fertility thru the seasons cycles in their foodwebs.

Also the movie of it with Stevie Wonder's magical soundtrack is inspiring! And few more books on plants magical qualities are in print now. Glad the movie is now available. I met Peter Thompkins a few years ago was wonderful. 'Secret Life' still is basic inspiring book for all Permaculture & botoney & wild plants & herb studies. It connects human Nature with plants sensitivities. See "Gaia's Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture"]

Great scientific research and tips on what MIGHT work. May Leave someone a bit wanting in terms of practical application of items discussed. From a biblical creationist point of you: this has a lot of areas that agrees with biblical statements. However at the very end of the book admiration for Blavatsky and Alice Bailey is expressed and there is some insinuating that the writer had "tapped into" their wisdom. Just note that Bailey was a famous practitioner of witchcraft and believer in eugenics and Blavatsky wrote "the secret doctrine" which was the basis for Hitler's world view-look it up.
Despite some creepy psychic babble, there is some real good, practical, useable science here. Eat the meat, spit out the bones.

I will never view plants the same way again - never! This amazing book revealed much information of which I was already aware and even more on the energy of plants. Since reading this book, I find myself thanking my eggs every morning before I crack their shells and drop them into the fry pan. Call me crazy but The Secret Life of Plants has made a believer out of me.

One of the best things that I can appreciate about this book is that the authors research in many cases led them to put into this publication the extent to which the ancient and classical cultures technology had on the influences of modern plant research and science. There were many renegades who attempted to and did bring this information to light with some good but mostly with mixed results. This usually happens when strange technology from advanced old world cultures is not understood by the present and the pseudo modernist just won't admit that they just got it wrong.

Secondly the authors profiled two geniuses who brought cutting edge scientific botanical know how to the for front of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One being George Washington Carver and the second was Jagadis Chandra Bose both of whom took plant science and technology to levels unknown for their times.

Finally plants really do have a very super secret life that is as fascinating as any other life form on this planet. The authors will take you there with some of the most fantastic stories about plants and the botanist, lay scientist, business people, sensitives etc. who dared to delve into the unknown and bring to light plant activities that is sure to intrigue. This book is one for every plant lover.

I read this book and thought it was interesting and qausi-credible up until page 29 where it cites the work of Ron Hubbard, founder of the wacked out cult group Scientology. Scientology! After that, the credibility of everything in this boom and it's authors vanished. Instantly. Don't bother.

The study of plants and human interaction come to life in this fine book and if read with an open mind and heart, one will no doubt be left with a new sense of awe and empathy for our plant world.

Chapter after chapter relates a multitude of discoveries from plant research around the world that demonstrate how plants grow, metabolize, and communicate not only within their own structure, but with all other life forms. Some researchers have used polygraph instruments connected to leaf surfaces to observe responses through electro-magnetic activity to various stimuli such as: raucous, loud music compared with mellow, harmonious music. The results are always the same: plants react favorably to mellow music while continuous raucous sounds can actually kill them. Even more amazingly, perhaps, is that plants accurately react to good or bad thoughts directed at them or other biological life forms and even at great distances.

Perhaps the most profound discovery of all of this plant research, however, is that plants are truly sentient beings capable of a multitude and range of feelings. Many skeptics have been astonished to discover this fact, but since this phenomena can be demonstrated using relatively simple tests, it is there for anyone to prove it on their own.

Masaru Emoto, a researcher in Japan, has come to the conclusion that sentient life is found in just about all life forms including water, which is the focus of his research. In his book, "The Hidden Message in Water", Emoto tells of using some of the same studies to demonstrate that ice crystals formed from various frozen water samples, show a sentient response to the same stimuli that the plants have been subjected to and with the same results.

This book references a broad spectrum of researchers such as Rachel Carson, author of the famous "Silent Spring"-1962. This book was a powerful indictment of chemical pesticides, herbicides, etc. and which was considered to be the biggest boost to environmental awareness that continues on to this day. She wrote about the alarming side effects of chemical contamination and the ludicrous, unnecessary vicious cycle of ever expanding need for more chemicals while plants and insects, unlike most other life-forms, so expertly alter their composition to resist this assault. Of course, the chemical manufacturers (aka: merchants of poison and death) are laughing all the way to the bank with this dangerous and insidious snake-oil scam.

After reading this book, one might feel a sense of rage about the assault of the thoughtless and needless use of toxic chemicals used on plant and insects, overflowing into all other life forms, wreaking havoc on non-targeted ecosystems. But, what goes around, comes around (Karma, and in this case, bad).

The book finishes with the founding story of the Findhorn Community in Scotland, an ecologically conscious horticultural group who started their project with the full awareness that plants are sentient and in this harsh land, would need more than just good organic farming techniques- they would also need continuous positive mental feed-back from their human caretakers. Findhorn has been a resounding success and is now a highly regarded learning center.

As other reviewers have stated, "this book should be read by every human on the planet" and hopefully, all will come to appreciate the multitude of life-providing services that plants bestow on humanity.

This book is a mixture of science, pseudoscience, and popular lore concerning plants, agriculture, and nature. It begins with a description of some intriguing experiments that seemingly found evidence for plants being able to respond to physical treatment, music, or ESP (both short and long distance). The authors then turn to the lives of some historical figures in horticulture, particularly Louis Burbank and George Washington Carver. Next comes a section on mysterious force fields and human and plant auras, then a section on organic agricultural and natural methods for building soil nutrients, and finally, a section on some hard to explain phenomena, such as dowsing.

Information in this book is teasingly pseudoscientific. The authors report on experiments that sound perfectly legitimate, but which lead to some rather outlandish results, such as corn plants grown in isolated containers that manage to water each other out of compassion for fellow plants denied water. Some of the research was apparently published in the peer-reviewed literature (particularly in the USSR). Other articles cited here found audiences in publications geared towards more general audiences, such as "Popular Mechanics." William Reich and his organon theories figure prominently in this book. If that's your cup of tea, you'll just love this entire volume to pieces. But if you're looking for serious science and real information, the book is rather frustrating, since there are bits and pieces of real facts in here, but they're hidden and disguised by all the flotsam and jetsam of imagination run wild.

As a chartered herbalist, I found a wealth of information in this book. I know what effect different plants constituents produce in the human body and was looking for something to teach me what affects the plants that heal us. How could I help my plants to develop to their maximum potential so they would produce herbal products of the finest quality and potency. To gain an understanding of how we can work with plants for our own health and healing as I believe it is a joint venture. Although I don't take any information as gospel I believe the information in this book gives me the tools to test the theories myself and draw my own conclusions. Fascinating to learn what I have always suspected - care for the soil, the plants and they will care for you

You have probably heard about George Washington Carver, famous for transforming the peanut into many marketable products, and Luther Burbank, the plant genius who developed marvelous new varieties in his plant breeding programs. If you want to learn about their achievements, you can look them up in an Encyclopedia. But if you really want to know what they did to produce their amazing achievements, you need to read The Secret Life of Plants.

This book contains details about their childhoods, for example, that George Washington Carver was a frail child and that he maintained a secret greenhouse in the woods where he cured sick plants. Also, that as a child, he used plants to cure sick animals.

You can also learn about the way these geniuses worked with plants, for example, that Luther Burbank had an amazing intuitive ability to know which of the plants in his plant breeding experiments contained the traits he desired. He evidently could go through millions of seedlings and pick out the ones that showed the most promise.

Furthermore, The Secret Life of Plants also describes the exploits of plant geniuses you may not have heard of, for example, a great Bengali scientist, knighted by King George V for his achievements, Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose, who discovered the interrelationship of plants and electromagnetism. There is also the Russian husband-wife team, the Kirlians, who discovered a way of photographing the aura around living things. In addition, you can read about Canadian researchers at the University of Ottawa, who used sound vibrations to speed up the growth of plants.

There are many more fascinating topics covered in this book, among them, the North Scotland community of Findhorn that works with nature spirits to produce amazing gardens, that dowsing is considered a respected science in France, and that the alchemists' goal of transmuting elements is effortlessly accomplished everyday by plants.

Co-author, Peter Tompkins, who also penned such fascinating tomes as Secrets of the Great Pyramid and Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids, unearths fascinating information by detailing the work of scientists shunned by conformist academia.

Being an avid organic gardener, I especially enjoyed learning why and how chemical fertilizers deplete the soil of nutrients, and also the amazing research that shows that plants have produced the nutrients they needed without supplemental chemicals or additives.

Probably The Secret Life of Plants is the most valuable to me because it shows how scientists using plants were able to prove the reality of telepathy, something researchers holding up index cards to human subjects have not been able to do adequately.